单选题
Many literary detectives have pored over a great puzzle concerning the writer Marcel Proust: what happened in 1909? How did Contre Saint-Beuve, an essay attacking the methods of the critic Saint Beuve, turn into the start of the novel Remembrance of Things Past? A recently published letter from Proust to the editor Vallette confirms that Fallois, the editor of the 1954 edition of Contre Saint-Beuve, made an essentially correct guess about the relationship of the essay to the novel. Fallois proposed that Proust had tried to begin a novel in 1908, abandoned it for what was to be a long demonstration of Saint-Beuve's blindness to the real nature of great writing, found the essay giving rise to personal memories and fictional developments, and allowed these to take over in a steadily developing novel. Draft passages in Proust's 1909 notebooks indicate that the transition from essay to novel began in Contre Saint-Beuve, when Proust introduced several examples to show the powerful influence that involuntary memory exerts over the creative imagination. In effect, in trying to demonstrate that the imagination is more profound and less submissive to the intellect than Saint-Beuve assumed, Proust elicited vital memories of his own and, finding subtle connections between them, began to amass the material for Remembrance. By August, Proust was writing to Vallette, informing him of his intention to develop the material as a novel. Maurice Bardeche, in Marcel Proust, Romancier, has shown the importance in the drafts of Remembrance of spontaneous and apparently random associations of Proust's subconscious. As incidents and reflections occurred to Proust, he continually inserted new passages altering and expanding his narrative. But he found it difficult to control the drift of his inspiration. The very richness and complexity of the meaningful relationships that kept presenting and rearranging themselves on all levels, from abstract intelligence to profound dreamy feelings, made it difficult for Proust to set them out coherently. The beginning of control came when he saw how to connect the beginning and the end of his novel. Intrigued by Proust's claim that he had "begun and finished" Remembrance at the same time, Henri Bonnet discovered that parts of Remembrance's last book were actually started in 1909. Already in that year, Proust had drafted descriptions of his novel's characters in their old age that would appear in the final book of Remembrance, where the permanence of art is set against the ravages of time. The letter to Vallette, drafts of the essay and novel, and Bonnet's researches establish in broad outline the process by which Proust generated his novel out of the ruins of his essay. But those of us who hoped, with Kolb, that Kolb's newly published complete edition of Proust's correspondence for 1909 would document the process in greater detail are disappointed. For until Proust was confident that he was at last in sight of a viable structure for Remembrance, he told few correspondents that he was producing anything more ambitious than Contre Saint-Beuve.
单选题
The passage is primarily concerned with______.
单选题
It can be inferred from the passage that all of the following are literary detectives who have tried, by means of either scholarship or criticism, to help solve the "great puzzle" mentioned in Lines 1-2 EXCEPT______.
单选题
According to the passage, in drafts of Contre Saint-Beuve Proust set out to show that Saint-Beuve made which of the following mistakes as a critic? I . Saint-Beuve made no effort to study the development of a novel through its drafts and revisions. II. Saint-Beuve assigned too great a role in the creative process to a writer's conscious intellect. III. Saint-Beuve concentrated too much on plots and not enough on imagery and other elements of style.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】解析:信息推断题。文章首段“Saint-Beuve's blindness to the real nature of great writing”提及圣伯夫长期以来对伟大文学作品的真正本质盲目无知。与Ⅱ中提及的“过度强调创意的过程而忽略了作家的有意识的智慧”意义相符。故答案为A。
单选题
Which of the following best states the author's attitude toward the information that scholars have gathered about Proust's writing in 1909?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析:信息推断题。文章末段提及致瓦莱特(Vallette)的信函、论文、小说的草稿,以及博内(Bonnet)的研究,以一种宽泛的轮廊(establish in broad outline)勾勒出了普鲁斯特的创作过程,揭示出他是如何从其论文的废墟上创作出其小说的。同时又指出我们当中的某些人,期望科尔布新近出版的《普鲁斯特1909年通信全集》能够更为详尽地记载这一过程(would document the process ingreater detail),结果是大失所望(are disappointed)。此信息与选项C内容一致。故答案为C。
单选题
The author of the passage implies that which of the following would be the LEAST useful source of information about Proust's transition from working on Contre Saint-Beuve to having a viable structure for Remembrance of Things Past?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析:细节推断题。文章主要探讨《驳圣伯夫》(Contre Saint-Beuve)一文——一篇抨击批评家圣伯夫批评方法的论文——是如何转变成为小说《追忆似水年华》(Remembrance of Things Past)的开端的?作者主要给出了3个证据。选项A与第一段中的“A recently published letter from Proust tothe editor Vallette confirms that…”信息对应;选项B与第二段中的“Proust's 1909 notebooksindicate that…”信息对应;选项D与“Maurice Bardeche,in Marcel Proust,romancier,has shownthe importance…”信息对应;选项C将写给Vallette的信排除在外(excluding),与文章第一段中的“A recently published letter from Proust to the editor.Vallette confirms that Fallois”信息不符。故答案为C。